Chris put her head up enough to see Ty. Over his shoulder was slung a couple of rabbits.
“Unity sent me out for rabbits.”
Chris wiped away the first drops of rain that fell on her face.
“And I wanted you in the garden,” Owen said.
Chris saw that Dysan, who’d been looking across the valley while Ty and Owen talked, turned to look at Tynan.
“And I expect you back there as soon as possible.”
“And withstand Unity’s wrath?” Tynan said cheerfully, blinking against the rain that was coming down steadily. “No thanks, I?
?ll stay here and get all three rabbits, just as I was ordered.” He paused as lightning lit the valley below them. “You gentlemen are sure gettin’ your fine clothes wet,” he said in a drawl.
For a moment, Chris held her breath, for the three of them looked for all the world as if they were going to shoot each other. Why? she wondered.
Dysan backed down first. “Let’s go,” he said, and, quietly, Owen followed him.
Chris crouched low in the bushes, trying to keep the rain out of her face and to keep Tynan from finding her.
There was no hiding to be done. Two minutes after the men left, he grabbed her arm and hauled her up before him. “I ought to take you over my knees. Do you know you could have been killed?”
Water was running off his hat onto her face. “How did you know where I was?”
“Pilar saw you going off and told me.” He had a nasty grip on her upper arm. “Now come with me.”
“But my horse, it’s—”
“You think they just left it?” He started down the hill the opposite way she’d come, pulling her behind him.
She kept her head down against the pelting rain, tripping along behind him. “Where are we going?”
“Home! To your father. You’ve taken twenty years off my life already and I don’t have many more left.”
“But what about Asher? They’re going to kill Lionel and blame it on Asher.”
“That’s his worry. You’re mine.” He stopped at a saddled horse and helped her up, then mounted behind her.
“Can we get back this way?”
“We can get to your father’s this way.”
“Tynan,” she said, turning in the saddle and putting her arms around his chest. “We can’t leave Asher there. We have to go back and warn him. Please.” She looked up at him with pleading eyes.
He studied her for a moment. “All right, damn it. We’ll warn him but then you go.”
“Yes, Tynan,” she said, still holding onto him as they rode. His muscles under her cheek completely blotted out the thrashing of the rain and the slash of the lightning.
He was traveling as fast as the laden horse would go when its front hooves suddenly came off the ground and Ty fought to control the horse and hold Chris in the saddle.
“Damn!” he said in a way that made Chris twist around to look. Lightning had struck the bridge, and the swollen stream was far too violent to cross.
“We’ll have to go back the other way,” Chris said, looking up at him.
“There is no bridge on the other side.”
He was holding the reins of the horse tightly, both of them drenched with rain, lightning all around them—yet Tynan made no effort to move.